People – HER Lab

Avneet Hira

Principal Investigator

PhD, Engineering Education, Purdue University

MS, Aerospace Engineering, Purdue University

BE, Aeronautical Engineering, Punjab Engineering College

Avneet Hira’s scholarship is motivated by the fundamental question of how engineering and technology can support people in living well in an increasingly engineered world. Her research, which is in engineering education, focuses on affordances of technology, humanistic design, and engineering epistemology. Her work is inspired by Making and tinkering practices, especially those from different local knowledge systems. Prior to Boston College, Avneet worked at the MIT Scheller Teacher Education Program and Education Arcade as a research scientist and at MathWorks as an education program manager. She partners with students and educators (middle school to undergraduate), youth and their families, community organizations, artisans, Makers, designers, and technologists in her work. She is passionate about creating technology-rich inclusive spaces for supporting purpose and connection in engineering education.

Isabella Stuopis

Post-Doctoral Scholar

PhD, Mechanical Engineering, Tufts University

BS, Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Isabella Stuopis is a postdoctoral researcher in the HER Lab. She received her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the School of Engineering at Tufts University. She is working on Dr. Hira’s NSF Career Award research, “Engineering in Youth-led Technology-rich Settings: Promoting Belonging and Preventing Harm.” Dr. Stuopis’s doctoral work focused on “Learning Assistants in Undergraduate Mechanical Engineering: Goals, Discourse, and Community.” Learning assistants (LAs) are near-peer members of the instructional team in undergraduate courses. They promote student thinking and discourse and learn pedagogical techniques in a weekly pedagogy seminar. Typically, LAs do not have grading responsibilities so that students are more likely to come to them about course questions. Dr. Stuopis, along with her doctoral advisor Dr. Kristen Wendell, facilitated weekly pedagogy seminars for the learning assistants. During her time at Tufts, Dr. Stuopis was actively involved in the Center for Engineering Education and Outreach and the Department of STEM Education.

Mobina Beheshti

Post-Doctoral Scholar

PhD, Computer Education and Instructional Technology, Near East University
MS, Information and Communication Technology in Education, Eastern Mediterranean University
MS, Information Systems, Eastern Mediterranean University
BA, Information Technology, Eastern Mediterranean University

Mobina Beheshti’s research areas intersect engineering education, flipped classrooms, and mobile learning. Passionate about enhancing educational experiences, she investigates how technology can be leveraged to support and enrich the learning journey, particularly in the field of engineering. Her research projects at Boston College focus on humanizing engineering and design practices, utilizing technology for learning support, and exploring engineering in informal, often low-resource, settings. Mobina collaborates with a diverse range of educators, from middle school to undergraduate levels. Before joining Boston College, she served as an assistant professor in the Department of Software Engineering at Final International University.

Sophia Brady